Asian cooking class in Cologne: Asia + Wok

An open fire burns under a classic wok with a rounded bottom; woks with a flat round bottom have been developed for electric stoves (ceramic or induction). The original called “Kuo” in Mandarin, conducts heat particularly well and can be made of cast iron, carbon iron, stainless steel, anodized cast aluminum or copper, sometimes with a non-stick coating.

What are you going to learn?

Participants in this cooking class learn how to cook dishes from various Asian countries, mainly in a wok. This cooking method is called “stir fry” or in English “stirfry”; it is a constant turning over of the previously finely cut ingredients. These ingredients are pulled up on the wok walls with a spatula or roasting scoop and come into contact with the heat. The shorter this process is, the crunchier the dish remains and so aromas are retained and barely lose any nutrients.

Depending on the dish, the order is important, because the amount of food sometimes requires us to cook in “installments”. Shredds, cooks faster and this cooking technique was developed in ancient China because there was a permanent shortage of firewood.

What sauces are used to cook?

Our participants learn how to use the following well-known sauces and pastes from Asia:

• Soy sauces “light or dark”
• Sweet ketjap manis
• Nam Pla, the salty fish sauce from Thailand
• or oyster sauce made from an oyster extract with its typical aroma.
• Pastes such as sambal oelek (there are about 100 different pastes), the 28 curry pastes from Thailand, bean pastes, etc.

Since there are too many to list them all here, these form the basis of this cooking class.